Macbeth
Platform: Commodore 64
Gametype: Undefined
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As detailed and careful an examination as any historical military simulation, Macbeth recreates the challenges faced by Lord and Lady Macbeth in their ruthless pursuit of the crown of Scotland. Their progress through Shakespeare's play is split into three text and graphical adventures, with an interlude adventure -- akin to one of the Bard's comic-relief scenes -- of a witch's assistant hunting for ingredients (eye of newt?!) on the blasted heath. Those desiring deeper analysis can sit down with Shakespeare himself as he probes the words and motivations of the Macbeths in four interviews uncomfortably like graduate-level oral exams.

Largely the same in each adventure, the command-line parser expects prepositions and even the occasional adverb. Finding the right noun is best done with the play in hand, but the parser will repeat back commands it doesn't understand, highlighting problematic words. Indeed, a copy of the 1623 play is included in the box and necessary in all the adventures and interviews.

The first adventure alternates graphical scenes with text descriptions, walking the player through MacBeth's steps and battles in the first four scenes of the play. There's enough variation to make it truly an adventure, with riddles and an ancient script to decipher which just might allow you to alter the future king's fate.

The second adventure covers the next seven scenes from Lady MacBeth's perspective, all in text and upping the challenge considerably. With a timer counting down an hour in real-time, you must manage a banquet and rooms for the king and his retinue, concoct a sleeping draught, and finally goad your quivering husband into murder. Don't worry; she had a tough time with that last part, too. The castle you must find your way through is a close match to the real Cawdor Castle, of course.

The third adventure offers its clues only in riddles and graphical scenes as you hunt down ingredients from the witches' incantation locking Macbeth to his destiny. Victory there does not seal his doom entirely, though. You can challenge that in the fourth adventure, where Macbeth rushes around Dunsinane Castle, preparing for siege. Mostly text, the interface fixes your attention on the timer again, which not only counts down the fifty minutes to MacDuff's fatal arrival, but burns and flashes with the pursuit of fire and murderous troops. Success rests in solving puzzles and finding secret rooms and, yes, more Shakespearean expertise.


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Description from the packaging:

Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble...
Macbeth... hero or villain? It's the central conflict behind one of the most famous play ever written. Was Macbeth a hero trapped in a predestined web beyond his ken, or the evil usurper brought down by forces of justice? Unarguably the most famous playwright in all of literature, William Shakespeare, late of the Globe Theater in London, is now appearing on your home computer in Macbeth. Justifiably an excellent play, Macbeth is complex, colorful characters plus rebels and kings, murder and treachery, justice and high tragedy.

A play for all ages... now available on disk for your Commodore 64/128 computer.
Four separate text adventures, two with graphics, each cover a different part of the play. From the young Macbeth, who must find a way to suppress the rebels in the service of his king and bring his name to renown, to the murderous tyrant trapped in his fiery castle with MacDuff on his trail, who must rewrite the ending before Shakespeare does!
Intertwined are two more adventures as you help the three witches assemble their evil brew ("Bubble, bubble, toil and trouble") and (as Lady Macbeth) prepare her castle for the arrival of the king, and determine how to murder him in his bed!

But that's not all! Each segment has a psychological program in which Will and you dive into the minds of Lord and Lady Macbeth, determining what motivated them into regicide and rebellion!
Accompanying it all is our usual top quality documentation with easy to learn rules, the entire play from 1623 First Folio, and extensive articles on the play, it's history and interpretations of characters. A feast that makes Macbeth an entertaining and educational pastime.




http://www.mobygames.com/game/c64/macbeth
